


Affection

by NanakiBH



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Established Relationship, Hugs, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Change of Heart!Shido, Unconventional Relationship, Valentine's Day, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 16:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13685370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: When was he going to find himself?





	Affection

**Author's Note:**

> I really had to rush to finish this in time. But I did it!
> 
> Papaake Valentine's fluff for your soul. ♥ My dedication to this ship won't rest!
> 
> This _almost_ feels like it's related to Pure, but it's not. Like always, my fics just have spiritual continuity. lol The relationship progresses.

“And what about you, Akechi-kun? What will everyone's favorite socialite be doing this Valentine's Day?”

_Socialite?_

He wished that they would stop calling him that. It made it sound like the only value he had left was in being the son of the Prime Minister.

The set lights irritated Akechi's eyes as he stared out at the audience. Whenever he was up there, he retreated into his own mind and forgot that they were there. Whenever he came back to himself and saw what was in front of him, he felt an unsettling feeling.

They looked like mannequins waiting for his response.

As for the ones asking the questions, their plastered-on smiles reminded him of his old self. That part of him... He wished that he could effortlessly move forward, discarding it behind him for good. Memories brought along hindsight and inescapable introspection. As crazy as it sounded, he envied Shido's change of heart. His guilt didn't make him constantly question the decisions he made – he just knew. It looked so easy...

Knowing that the cameras expected him to maintain eye contact with the hosts made Akechi uncomfortable. He tried not to make it obvious, but it wasn't easy to put up an act anymore. Whenever he made an appearance on TV, he was afraid that the hosts were going to notice the change in his behavior and make a comment on it. He wasn't prepared for that. People on social media had already begun making speculations, sharing screenshots of him from his appearances, analyzing the changes in his body language. (Didn't they have anything better to do?)

 

Valentine's Day was the worst. He always received too much attention on that day...

 

It was so frivolous and unnecessary.

 

“I don't have any plans, personally,” he said, crossing one leg over the other. “I'm very available today.” He looked back out at the audience as he brushed his hair away from his eyes and heard a girl somewhere near the back row shout his name. He smiled in her direction and a chorus of fanatical cheers erupted.

The male host clapped his hands together and leaned toward him, expressing interest. “Oh, but I bet you must have boxes of chocolates and love letters pouring into your mailbox by the second! Do you take the time to read each one?”

“Of course.” Yeah, of course not. “The number may be too great for me to respond to, though. If your letter doesn't receive a response from me, please know that your sincere words have still reached my heart.”

Again, the largely-female audience responded with feverish enthusiasm to his vapid performance. He got the feeling that he could say anything and there would be fans who somehow still heard it however they wanted. They were pathetic. Even if he felt like he wasn't lying about important things anymore... They still looked like puppets who danced at his command. He couldn't feel them at all.

“Is there anyone in particular you're hoping to receive chocolates from?”

He already had someone, more or less – not that he could ever speak a word about his involvement with his father. Related or not, that man was disgusting. He would have never felt proud to tell anyone about their relationship – if it could even be called that much.

He hated it. He hated that he always thought of them in such terms. There was always a 'maybe', never sure whether the thing they had was real or not. He could finally be called an adult, but an annoying part of him still felt like a helpless kid compared to Shido. He was afraid that he'd never be able to bridge that gap. Thirty-six years was a lot... That was practically a whole lifetime. Thinking about how much Shido had experienced before he even existed made him feel overwhelmed.

So what was he supposed to do? And how was he supposed to answer a question like that?

It was easier when he told himself that he only hated him.

He couldn't remember his old answers anymore.

“I don't have anyone like that,” he said. It was a lie, of course, but he didn't feel so bad about telling such a cheap lie. For all he knew, it was the truth.

“Maybe you and the Prime Minister can make it a guys' night.”

Akechi wanted to leave the planet.

The female co-host sighed dreamily. “I heard that he was quite the playboy. Is that still true? We won't be hearing about any Valentine's Day scandals, will we?”

If he wasn't mistaken, it sounded like she was _hoping_ for a scandal – or she wanted to be a part of one. _That_ wasn't happening.

“Playboy....? That sounds like his business. He's been very responsible since he took office. I expect that he'll be having a date with work tonight.”

“Hm, that's too bad.” The disappointed look on her face made Akechi feel absolutely disgusted. “Housewives love him, you know. You should help him out.” She giggled in a way that left Akechi feeling even more unsettled. The rosiness in her cheeks gave him a bad feeling. “I wouldn't mind being your new mommy~”

He wasn't just disgusted. He was revolted.

Ah, but he was obligated to smile and act like he wasn't nauseated by the gross presumptuousness of that comment. Even as a joke, it wasn't a very good one. They didn't understand that no one was qualified to take his mother's place. Even on the day for lovers, he had no expectation that his father would take him seriously.

“I think you'd be disappointed by what little free time he has.” As he was. “Don't worry. He has me to look out for him and keep him in line now.”

As expected, the audience cooed. They adored it when he acted like a good son. He was the Prime Minister's perfect boy. He kept him feeling relatable to the people who weren't as engaged with political discussion.

He didn't have to do that, though... He even told them that he would prefer to keep matters focused on himself.

It had to be habit or something. He didn't owe him the publicity.

“You're adorable, Akechi-kun! Doesn't everyone agree?” the host said, turning toward the audience to hear their reaction. A round of cheers. “I think any parent would be lucky to have a child as devoted as Akechi-kun.”

Akechi uncrossed his legs and put his feet flat on the floor, resting his hands over his knees. “Isn't that how it should be? Every child should love and respect their parents. They're the ones who brought you into the world, after all.” Somehow, he managed to say all of that without a hint of sarcasm. It left a strange taste in his mouth. “This Valentine's Day, why don't we try focusing on that type of love? If you're disappointed that you don't have a special someone in your life, remember the love of your family and friends. Share your chocolate with them and show them your appreciation.”

“That's good advice,” the co-host said, nodding. “Do you hear that, everyone? You don't need to have a reason to enjoy some chocolate today. Have a good time with your family and friends or treat yourself!”

“That concludes today's show,” the host said. “Join us again tomorrow!”

Once he was finished shaking hands and making polite smalltalk with the hosts through the show's credits, Akechi eagerly left the set. It wasn't like he was lying when he said he didn't have plans, but... It was disappointing. Even his advice. It probably sounded appropriate to normal people, but his fixation was anything but normal.

It was surely Shido's responsibility to invite him somewhere. A single text message would have been enough. Did he assume that Valentine's Day was irrelevant if they were both men? Did he think it was pointless if they were related?

Since when did he start expecting so much from him?

Akechi took his phone from his pocket and stared at it as he left the studio. He still felt like he was missing something without his briefcase. He didn't need that for anything anymore, but its absence made him feel vulnerable. He had nothing but the wallet in his pocket and the phone in his hand, but it wasn't as comforting as the gun he used to keep in his briefcase, nor did it substitute the real presence of another person.

 

He walked to the station with his head down, rode the train with his eyes on his feet. The people around him just caused him discomfort, packed around him like filler.

February was cold still. The tips of his fingers felt numb, but he felt dizzy from the heat of other people on the train. That confusing hot-and-cold sensation followed him on his way back home, prickling the back of his mind.

They were tangible, but he still couldn't feel them. Their black eyes reflected a clean, sanitized version of him that he didn't recognize. But when he looked down at himself, things became no clearer. As if it were all an illusion, he expected the form beneath him to disappear, and yet it stubbornly remained. It disappointingly remained, revealing nothing of itself.

He wanted Shido to love him.

That man who had shown affection to no one in the past...

His present self was so much nicer. He was simple. Straightforward.

The honesty of his changed heart would surely reveal who he was supposed to be.

 

Akechi returned to the official residence of the Prime Minister, the place he reluctantly called home. An amusing thought passed through his mind as he stared up at the large building. He felt like the hero in a video game approaching the castle of the final boss.

His daydream wouldn't have been that different from the truth of reality, except the evil had already been vanquished. Himself, he was just a defeated midboss, returning to the ruins left in the wake of the last battle. Even in his own story, he couldn't be the hero.

Through grey clouds and drifting snow, the sun shined light upon those ruins.

 

After passing through the security checks, he stood in the entrance where a guard stood, shuffling through a bundle of mail, piles of letters and boxes and bouquets of flowers at his feet. When he noticed Akechi standing there, he dropped a few of the things he was holding in embarrassment and tried to pretend as though he hadn't just been snooping through their mail.

“H-Have to make sure it's all safe!” he said, face flushed a bright, guilty red. “Y-You know how it is. There could be drugs and other hazardous things mixed in. Our priority is keeping you safe.”

If it was that dangerous, then he shouldn't have been carelessly handling it right in the doorway. Akechi was willing to overlook it, though. He didn't care about any of it.

“If you find something you like, keep it. I'm not going to risk it. I used to get excited about mail from fans until I started receiving some really disturbing things. If you're going to eat any of the chocolate, you should have someone else double-check it first, that's all.”

The guard stared at him, the blush in his face gradually receding. “Thanks. That's really nice of you. I know this was probably going to be too much for you to handle by yourself anyway, so... Don't mind if I do!”

He shamelessly started digging through the pile of Valentine's letters and gifts. It looked like he must have already had his eye on a few things. A second pile started growing behind him as he set things aside for himself. The cards on some of the bouquets were addressed to Shido, so some of it had to belong to him as well, but Akechi knew that he wouldn't have been interested, either.

“Have you seen Shido-sa-...” Akechi bit his tongue and glanced away when the guard turned around to look at him. With their relationship as father and son known to everyone, it didn't sound appropriate for him to be calling him by his name like that. “Have you seen my father?”

The guard nodded, carelessly shoving a piece of chocolate in his mouth. “Oh yeah, he said he wanted to see you.”

That was weird. Shido knew that he was going to be at the studio, so if he needed something, he should have called or sent him a message. It was Valentine's Day, but his phone had been depressingly silent. Akechi wasn't looking for him to be romantic, but he would have appreciated _something_. After everything he went through for him, a mere text would have even been better than nothing.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Akechi asked. A small hesitance seized him and made him pause, unsure of what words to proceed with. He latched a finger in the scarf around his neck and loosened it so he could breathe. “How do we seem to you? What do you think he thinks of me?”

“Of you? After what happened with him, uh... I don't know. He's pretty nice now, isn't he?” The guard shoved another piece of chocolate in his mouth. “I'd say he cares about you? You're his son.”

“I see...”

Akechi didn't want Shido to see him as just his son, though. His change of heart was a double-edged sword – he feared that Shido's conscience would eventually refuse to humor him any longer. The change made him feel immense guilt for having hurt his only son, but it seemed possible that the change could just as easily prevent him from showing him the kind of affection he really wanted.

He was happy that Shido loved him as his father.

But he wanted his father to love him as Shido, too.

 

His own heart had twisted him up and made him stupid.

 

He had to be stupid, wanting to be loved sincerely by someone so worthless.

 

“Thank you,” he said, nodding to the guard. “I'll go see what he wants.”

On his way to Shido's office, he removed his stifling coat and scarf. It was good to breathe again. For some reason, he really felt more at ease once he was walking the halls of the kantei. It was completely different from how things used to be, when he used to trudge back to his apartment by himself in the cold. It had been horrible, stepping into an empty apartment. Sometimes, it'd been hard to tell what was worse – being together with Shido at his worst or being totally alone.

Neither were good. It was easy to see that, looking back.

Inside, he still felt a slight hesitance. Everything had changed so suddenly, it was like a part of him had been left behind and was still trying to catch up, struggling to make sense of it all. It sent his mind in circles. He hadn't expected it to end that way.

There was no plan after revenge.

He still felt lost. He didn't know who he was. He didn't know who he had been.

But he felt comfortable there.

 

He gave one knock on Shido's office door and entered without further announcement. Shido knew what one knock meant.

When he opened the door, he found Shido sitting at his desk, engrossed in whatever he was busy with. The focused, serious look on his face was no different from the way he used to look, and yet Akechi felt like that expression belonged to someone else. He looked like he could use a coffee and a massage. What a silly old man he'd turned into, working so earnestly for the sake of the country.

Releasing a long sigh, Shido sat back in his chair and pressed his fingers over his eyes. He looked exhausted. After another deep breath, once he opened his eyes and saw Akechi standing there, the tiredness vanished from his face.

Akechi didn't want to smile.

He hated how excited Shido looked to see him.

“The guard at the front told me that you wanted to see me,” he said. Compared to the kind of men Shido used to surround himself with, his new network was a huge improvement. That guard was a pretty good guy. Worth trying to remember his name.

Without explaining what he wanted to see him for, Shido just rose from his seat, rounded his desk, and strode toward him. A moment later, Akechi found himself enveloped in a strong embrace, pulled against Shido's chest. Akechi blinked and tried moving his shoulders, but he was firmly trapped.

His head barely reached above Shido's shoulder...

Akechi squeezed his hands between them and gave Shido's chest a light push, trying to separate them a little so he could look up at him. “What are you doing?”

“I was disappointed that I didn't get the chance to see you before you left this morning.” He lifted a hand and gently touched Akechi's hair. His amber eyes were filled with a warmth and tenderness that Akechi still wasn't used to. It felt strange, but he soaked it up. “You look glum. Is something bothering you? Was the way back too cold for you?”

Once his arms were loosened, it was easy for Akechi to dislodge himself. “I'm fine,” he muttered, feeling weirdly defensive. “Why did you want to see me?”

Shido let him go and stood back, looking him over skeptically. “Really, has something gotten into you? You aren't acting like yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

How did he expect him to act? Was he still supposed to always smile and act cheerful? That was too tiring. He couldn't do that anymore. He was kind of mad, but he couldn't just come out and say it. If he did that, he would've sounded like a brat. His father was the Prime Minister. Regardless of their history, it was stupid for him to expect that Shido could drop his responsibilities to be with him on _Valentine's Day._

What was he thinking...?

“Ah.” The utterance Shido made sounded knowing. He nodded to himself and headed back to his desk. “I know why you've got that bitchy look on your face. I may not always be perceptive, but I know what a woman looks like when she hasn't gotten her way.” He paused and looked over his shoulder at him. “Sorry for the comparison.”

“Right. No offense taken,” Akechi muttered slowly, feeling more confused than offended.

Shido grabbed what was on his desk and returned with it in hand. He extended the small rectangular box to Akechi who received it from him warily.

“Happy Valentine's Day,” Shido said, sounding smoother than he had any right to. “I know you already got a lot of chocolate from your fans, but I also remembered that you would never eat any of that. It made me feel kind of bad when I remembered the way you'd throw it away. I've never been into the whole Valentine's Day and White Day thing, but those kinds of small gestures mean a lot to you, don't they? That is, when they come from someone you care about. So... I wanted you to have chocolate you could eat this year.”

Akechi stared down at the box in his hands. He slowly smoothed a thumb over the ribbon tied around it. It felt like something was splitting in his chest, but... Whatever it was, it wasn't a bad feeling.

 

He'd been disappointed for nothing?

 

“Is this... what you wanted to see me for?” he asked.

“Yeah. It is.” Seeming out of his element, Shido ran a hand over the back of his head and rubbed his neck. “Apparently this is a thing parents do. It's probably not very exciting to receive chocolate from your dad, huh?”

 

Oh.

 

“So this is supposed to be... Family chocolate.”

Shido headed back to his desk and sat down. “You're disappointed? If it's from me, then what's the difference?” he asked, leaning back in his seat. “I thought I should make the gesture as your father since I've been such a failure as a parent.”

 

Made the gesture... _as his father?_

 

Akechi let that repeat in his head a few times. Each time it repeated, it began to sound a little more different. It sounded like Shido was acknowledging that he had the option of offering it to him as more than his father – he'd simply chosen to give it to him as his father because he thought that would feel more significant to him.

He was trying to be thoughtful.

Once again, like always, Akechi was left feeling like a child. His way of looking at the situation had been too simple. Shido didn't have to be one thing or the other. He could be his father _and_ his lover. And, after the change of heart, Akechi sadly had to admit that the two of them were still changing, becoming new people he didn't recognize yet.

If they were always changing, there was a possibility that he would never recognize who they were.

And, if that was how things were always going to be, then...

That was okay, wasn't it?

 

Akechi pulled up a seat and sat down on the other side of Shido's desk, facing him. Without responding at all to what he said, he placed the box of chocolates on the desk and carefully untied the ribbon and removed the film wrapping. They may have just been store-bought chocolates, but they were chocolates from his father. It didn't matter how they tasted. Akechi already knew how he would feel about them.

He opened the box. Each piece was roughly the same size, but their difference in shape meant that they were probably all different kinds. The box didn't have an insert or anything to indicate what they were, unfortunately. He was just going to have to guess.

Choosing at random, he picked out one for himself, then chose another that looked about the same and leaned across the desk with it, extending it for Shido.

“Say 'ahh.'”

Chuckling, Shido leaned forward and used his teeth to pluck the bite-sized piece of chocolate from Akechi's fingers.

Akechi bit into his and let it melt over his tongue. He was pleasantly surprised by the mature, slightly bittersweet taste.

“Dark chocolate.”

Shido, on the other hand, made faces as he tried to determine the flavor of the piece he'd put in his mouth all at once.

“Strawberry...?” He looked aside while grimacing. “Whatever it is, it's not very good. I hope you don't encounter another one of these.”

Akechi watched Shido's candid expression, feeling distant from himself. He felt like a voyeur. As his son, as his child, as an adult... He didn't know how he was supposed to respond to his manner. He didn't know what he was supposed to do or say at that moment, but he was able to feel him. The bittersweet taste melting on his tongue was a taste he'd longed for for so long.

The place beside him he was afraid of replacing... It didn't exist. It never had.

All of those distinctions he tormented himself with in an attempt to define his self... They weren't real, either.

 

What a liberating realization that was.

 

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Shido said. “You can't tell what any of these are until you bite into them.”

“No, it's-...”

Shaking his head, he pushed back his chair and got up, coming around to Shido's side. He waited for him to face him, then sat down in his lap and put an arm around his shoulders. He stared at the wall behind them so he didn't have to look Shido in the eyes. With that splitting feeling in his chest again, he rested his head against Shido's and closed his eyes.

Shido held him and turned his head to place a kiss to the side of his jaw.

Akechi smiled faintly.


End file.
